Overnight money market

The 3DO: The birth of my cynicism real and that happened and that do actually say something about the world, and those real things are informing our point of view now, in the form of that emotional charge. For as long as the internet has had access to me and my writing, and also for many years before that, I have been a strong videogame cynic. I pretty much hate all videogames, even the ones I play, and even the ones I endorse. Someone asked me what the best Nintendo DS game was. I said, confidently, that I thought it was Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer. They looked into it some, and were able to find out many egregiously horrible design flaws in the game. I conceded them all, saying, "I didn't say Shiren was good, I said it was the best DS game." I've met people recently who call themselves videogame cynics, who say stuff like "I feel like I hate all videogames", and I just know that they like videogames way more than I do. Over the last few years I've been telling people I'm a … [Read more...] about Day: December 16, 2017

After a slow start for the original Fortnite, Epic made some changes and added a free battle royale mode, turning a struggling game into an overnight sensation. There's clearly a fine line between homage and copying, but while there are many similarities to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Fortnite takes a decidedly sillier approach to the battle royale genre. Key to this is a willingness to experiment, with limited time game modes, holiday events, and more—not to mention plenty of aesthetic customizations that can be earned/purchased. Battle Royale mode is technically still in Early Access, but with a player base of over 20 million—and as already noted, it's free to try—we felt it was worth checking out how performance is shaping up. Given the somewhat cartoony graphics, you might expect performance to be a non-issue, but that's not entirely true. At the lowest settings, Fortnite can run on just about any PC built in the past five years. Officially, the minimum … [Read more...] about Fortnite Battle Royale performance and settings guide

Twitch and YouTube culture quickly became defined by its provocateurs. These creators are known for saying outrageous things and acting in outrageous ways, wearing ridiculous getups or performing questionable stunts disguised as pranks — and they do it all for the sake of content. Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, Vine, Twitter and Snapchat hone these types of provocateurs, but it’s the first two companies who’ve made headlines in recent months because of their creators. Logan Paul left YouTube in January after being criticized for uploading a video that featured the body of a man who had recently committed suicide. Twitch streamer Dr. DisRespect became a topic of conversation over his offensive use of a fake Chinese accent in past videos, in which he mocked Chinese players in games like H1Z1 and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Conversations about controversial IRL streamers like Ice_Poseidon on YouTube and notoriously toxic gamers like Tyler1 have picked up again in … [Read more...] about YouTube and Twitch helped to create an inescapable era of provocateur culture

Unlike previous years, there were no zingers in the world of mobile games during 2017. That’s not to say nothing happened, of course. Plenty did, but looking back, it was more a case of accelerating trends and future potential than headline-grabbing news such as Activision Blizzard’s $5.9 billion deal for King in 2015, or Nintendo’s first mobile game and Pokemon Go’s success in 2016. So here are six of the year’s most significant trends; ones you’ll likely to see more of in 2018 too. Mobile eSports Is mobile eSports now a thing? Plenty of developers think so, and 2017 saw long term proponents such as Super Evil Megacorp finessing their activity. It’s just closed out the World Champions for its mobile MOBA Vainglory in Singapore, also previewing the 5v5 mode that will launch next year. Similarly Finnish developer Critical Force announced 30 million downloads of its Counter-Strike-inspired shooter Critical Ops, adding eSports investor and … [Read more...] about 6 of the most significant mobile game trends in 2017

[This story originally ran on on Feb. 27, 2013. We’re republishing it today to provide background on the Wolfenstein franchise prior to the release of Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus .] In the late 1980s, a Texan twenty-something named Scott Miller created a business model that would change the way people bought and sold products across the world. Miller called his masterpiece the Apogee model. Everyone else called it shareware. It made digital sales on the internet stupendously profitable and Miller a millionaire. The model and the man would revolutionize how we use the internet — before most of the world knew what the internet was. Full-time nerds Young Scott Miller was sort of a loaf. In high school in the early 1980s, the nerdy teenager would escape the Texas sun by programming lengthy text adventures in the campus computer lab. Here he met fellow budding designer George Broussard, a teenage boy with a penchant for wearing shorts. The two boys bonded over a mutual … [Read more...] about Apogee: Where Wolfenstein got its start